California is set to release its highly-anticipated report on reparations on Wednesday, concluding the work of a statewide “task force” dedicated to discovering so-called “systemic racism” in the state and determining methods for redistributing wealth to black residents.
According to the Associated Press, the report is set to include such propositions as expanding voter registration, further restrictions on police and harsher punishments for individual officers, and making improvements to black neighborhoods. It will also recommend the creation of a new office that would help black Californians prove their lineage to determine if they were descended from slaves, at which point they would be eligible for financial compensation.
Kamilah Moore, the chair of the task force, noted that the coming 500-page report will be the first such report on discrimination against African-Americans since 1968, when the Kerner Commission report was ordered by President Lyndon Johnson.
“I hope that this report is used not only as an educational tool, but an organizing tool for people not only in California but across the U.S. to educate their communities,” said Moore. She added that the report will also focus on the “contributions of the African American community and how they made the United States what it is despite ongoing oppression and degradation.”
The task force is the result of legislation first signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) in 2020, in the midst of nationwide race riots following the accidental fentanyl overdose death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the first such task force at a statewide level in the country.
The report is set to blame California for “systemic racism,” despite the fact that the state never joined the Confederacy in the Civil War and did not support slavery. Allegedly, the report will document instances of discriminatory laws and regulations in education, housing, employment, and the legal system that targeted black Californians in particular.
The task force had previously decided in March that they would limit reparations to only those who could prove that they were descended from slaves, in a move that angered far-left activists who demanded financial compensation for all African-Americans, regardless of heritage.